Buckwheat soba noodles

Life continues to roll over the top of me, hence the pause in posts. However, thought i’d try a few short ones for anyone still reading!

A couple of weeks ago when the temperatures and humidity were high, the Vege Grower was away (somewhere even more hot and humid) and I was getting lethargic and off-hand about food, but the Lawn Mower needs to eat well as he has a physically active job which, besides lifting and carrying, has him on his feet all day.

I remembered a story my friend Robyn told me about her years living in Japan and how hot and humid the summers are in Tokyo. Well, two stories. One was that summer is the season for public firework displays and that centuries ago the Sumida River in Tokyo was chosen as a site for a major display because of the reflections on the water – and the cooling night-time breezes that might be had there.

Buckwheat soba noodles. Photo: Wikipedia

The other story was that cold food becomes very popular and, as only the Japanese can, this has been refined in all sorts of ways. I dug up a recipe online for a cold soba noodle salad, which was easy to make – everything can be done ahead and put in the fridge – and surprisingly delicious. The buckwheat noodles and Tamari (a gluten-free soya sauce) were sourced from my local Asian supermarket. The only thing I didn’t do was use coriander as I can’t stand the taste of the fresh plant.

Buckwheat in flower. Photo: Wikipedia

Despite, the ‘wheat’ part of its name, buckwheat (Fagopyrum esculentum) is what is known as a pseudocereal, a goup that also includes include quinoa and amaranth, eg, seeds are consumed as cereal grains but don’t grow on grasses.

My only other knowledge of buckwheat is that the flour is used to make galettes, the savoury crepes traditional in Brittany, France. See a recipe for making them at home in a regular frying pan.

Buckwheat is fast and easy to grow and in the garden is a good green manure crop that can be turned in or pulled and left to compost. It absorbs phosphorus and is able to return this to the soil in a more useable form, while its flowers attract a number of beneficial species including hoverflies and ladybirds.

Sulphur Gardens

On a quick visit to Rotorua last year I had time for a stroll in Government Gardens where a sign headlined ‘A Source of Wonder’ caught my eye: Among the few formal gardens in New Zealand at the time, ‘The Sulphur Gardens’, as they were known, were a source of wonder, defying predictions that nothing would grow in such ‘a howling wilderness’. Vegetable gardens and an orchard supplied produce for the Sanatorium, and a Maori whare, aviary and monkey house were built to satisfy the Victorian taste for exotica. Some of the trees you can see today, such as the Cryptomerias, are remnants of original plantings in the 1890s.The 100-year-old plane trees have been pollarded, a technique fashionable in the Edwardian era …

One of the pollarded plane trees at Government Gardens, a striking effect in winter. Rotorua Museum is in the distance. Photo: Sandra Simpson

But what of The Sulphur Gardens and Sanatorium? A pamphlet from the nearby Sulphur Lake Sculpture Trail said the first Sanatorium Hospital opened in 1886, between the lake, and the Bath House (the currently closed Rotorua Museum) and a Govenment Sanatorium opened in 1908. Both were used as part of an holistic treatment regime for soldiers returning from World War 1, combining physical and pyschological therapies.

The Sanatorium Hospital in Rotorua. Photo: Te Papa Tongarewa Museum of NZ

In 1881, an agreement reached between Ngati Whakaue leaders, the judiciary, and Government agents, was legalised by the Thermal Springs District Act 1881. The town of Rotorua and, within that, an area of 50 acres containing many medicinal thermal springs was created, ‘Hei oranga mo nga iwi katoa o te Ao’ (for the benefit of the people of the world), this latter being the forerunner of the Rotorua Government Gardens. Read more about Maori connection to the land here.

An advertisement from the Hot Lakes Chronicle of July 8, 1896. Image: Papers Past

Government Gardens lie on the edge of one of the most active areas of Lake Rotorua, Sulphur Bay. This area was once deep under water and is part of a great crater formed during a huge volcanic eruption 220,000 years ago. Read more here.

One side of Forever Remembered by Rotorua sculptor Paul Bottomley. The holes on the right-hand side represent bullet holes. Photo: Sandra Simpsom

Today, the Sanatorium is no more and the elaborate Bath House Museum has been closed for coming up to 7 years for earthquake strengthening and restoration. However, Rotorua District Council last year vowed to keep on with the work and re-open the building.

But Sulphur Lake is still there and a short loop walk takes in a sculpture trail and small memorial bridge with a plaque that says for the convalescing soldiers of World War 1, Sulphur Lake was a place of tranquility, recreation and contemplation to assist in the healing process. It’s hard to know from online research, but it seems the sculptures may change every so often. Read more about the entire Rotorua Sculpture Trail here.

Recollections of a happy life

Isn’t this a lovely title for a memoir? Would that we could all look back on our lives so positively. The book was written by botanical artist Marianne North (1830-1890), but published after her death. It tells the story of a remarkable woman who, between 1871 and 1885, visited 17 countries on 6 continents and made 832 botanical paintings – all of which she presented to the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, along with a donation to build a gallery to house them. Read the memoir here.

The Marianne North Gallery is an immersive experience as the walls are covered in her paintings, as many as possible crammed in (in the ‘right’ sort of way, naturally).

Marianne North photographed in 1886. Image: Wikipedia

Born in Hastings, England, Marianne came from a prosperous family. She first trained as a singer but when her voice failed and then her mother died, she turned to painting flowers. She and her father initially travelled together but after his death in 1869 Marianne, then aged 40, continued alone, travelling as far afield as New Zealand, Tenerife, Borneo, Brazil, Jamaica, Japan and South Africa and spending all of 1878 in various parts of India.

When botanists saw her painting of a carnivorous pitcher plant from Sarawak, on the island of Borneo, it caused great excitement as the plant turned out to be unknown to science until then. The species was named Nepenthes northiana in 1881 in her honour.

Marianne painted in oils – at the time botanical artists invariably used watercolours – and her paintings were vibrant to contemporary eyes. This 8-minute video is a nice introduction to her work.

She swam back into my consciousness this week after seeing a news report about how the the gallery was closed for its annual spring clean and how delicate some of that cleaning needs to be.